Friday, August 11, 2017

8 Creative Ways to Enhance your Note-Taking Habits

Even though most students nowadays rely on their digital devices to carry them through their school life, writing note by hand remains as the most widely used method of note-taking. There are many reasons why this approach still reigns.

Handwriting fosters comprehension and retention—cognitive results that other forms of note-taking cannot immediately produce. The accelerated speed with which you type your notes reduces the amount of time you have to digest the information you are writing. The same applies to using tutorial videos and audio materials.If you are enrolled in an exceptional training facility, like the IELTS review center in Makati, always bring a notebook with you during your classes. Refrain from relying solely on your memory or the given materials and adopt these excellent note-taking habits to enhance your IELTS training.

1. Add style to your penmanship. Do not limit yourself to your usual print or cursive handwriting style. Write freely and creatively. You can: • Use colored or broad-tip pens to write headings and subheadings.• Emphasize important points by outlining them with a highlighter. • Emulate 3D and other bold lettering styles for titles. • Stress annotations by adding additional strokes to your letters. • Use a dotted line, instead of the usual fine line, to accentuate statements.

2. Emphasize significant annotations. There are many ways to amplify a statement’s importance. You can:• Underline them using a different colored pen. • Enclose them with a geometric or freeform shape. • Write them with a font style distinctly different from their surrounding text. • Encase them in hand-drawn banners or ribbons. • Put them inside a thought bubble.

3. Learn how to abbreviate words and phrases. This note-taking technique is perfect for fast-paced lectures as it requires minimal writing time without sacrificing the coherence of your notes.

4. Establish a color system. If you love using various colors of highlighters when you write or go through your modules, then this strategy is for you. Assign a purpose for each color you have. For instance, pink highlights correspond to vocabulary words while blue highlights signify key definitions. If you have a hard time remembering what each color indicates, label your highlighters.

5. Doodle helpful embellishments. Whenever you encounter concepts that are more understandable through illustrations, do not hesitate to draw them out. Key points that are accompanied by relevant illustrations are often more memorable than those that are not.

6. Include significant details. Here are some of the things that most students neglect to include in their lecture notes: • class date• textbook or review material title • textbook or review material pages • mentioned supplementary materials • questions about the class discussion • answers to questions during class discussion

7. Use graphic organizers. Utilize diagrams, charts, graphs, and other visual devices to bring order to your lectures.

8. Maximize sticky notes. Sticky notes are versatile note-taking tools. You can use them to add more notes on top of your previous annotations. You can also use them to separate major subjects in a single notebook.

Booth, Jessica. "20 Images That Will Help You Take the Best Notes in Class." Gurl.com. September 06, 2016. Accessed July 10, 2017. http://www.gurl.com/2016/09/06/how-to-take-notes-in-class-inspiration-images-tips/.